Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a bill ending Louisiana’s growing film industry.
Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a bill on Friday placing a cap on the film industry tax credit that major movie producers strongly urged the governor to veto.
According to Nola.com, Jindal’s office announced the governor signed the bill into law, which basically kills thousands of jobs.
The bill includes a provision that will suspend the state’s film credit buyback program for one year, meaning anyone who wants to cash in a film credit for 85 cents on the dollar can’t do that until the middle of 2016.
Last year, the state spent about $258 million on tax credits and has certified an average of $271 million in credits each year since 2011.
The law also places a limit of issuing no more than $30 million per film.
By putting per film tax credit limit, this will close the door to the number of high profile movies such as “Jurassic World” – which filmed in New Orleans, Louisiana late last year. It is expected that 13,000 people will lose their job.
The only thing that can save Louisiana’s film industry would be for the opponents of the bill to file suit against the state over its failure to pay for tax credits that have already been certified. Critics of the bill argued that they expect legal challenges to be filed if that happens because the cap could mean the state can’t pay out anything over $180 million.
This is good news for Georgia. Recently, Gov. Nathan Deal revealed how he plans to take over the film industry completely and make the Peach State the filmmaking capital of the world. Deal is building Atlanta to become the future home of the film industry. “If you get caught in the trap of having to defend tax credits to the entertainment industry vs. having to not use that money for things like education, then sometimes it is hard to defend,” he says. “We have avoided being caught in that trap.”
Expect the number of productions to dramatically increase in Georgia and therefore, the number of jobs.
If you live in the Louisiana area and are interested in building your filmmaking career, then you may want to buy a bus ticket to Atlanta because business is going to start booming.
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